Greeted by error message after installation. File does not exist! C:/:/assembly2/icons/workBenchIcon.svg

[wisecad]

Dear FreeCAD team/community,

First, let me thank you all for your efforts to make available a sorely-needed open-source software option for parametric 3D CAD.

- Introduction (you can skip this detail and go directly to the problem section):
A few years back, I tried FreeCAD (version 0.17). Didn’t have a very good experience back then, running into a few bugs from the beginning, while trying to do simple stuff. Being that I am not so well-versed in using parametric CAD software, often the results I expect from using any functionality would not be what I would get, but I would not know for sure if the unexpected results were caused by not using the functionality properly or because there was a bug in the code. Consequently, I would spend hours trying to figure out something that in the end would unfortunately turn out to be a bug. In short, I decided to drop my exploration of FreeCAD and come back later in hopes that future versions would be more bug-free

- Problem:
A few years have gone by and FreeCAD is now on version 0.19 (Hurray!!!). I am still interested, and I decided to give it another try. So, I uninstalled the old version (v-0.17) and installed the new one. To my dismay, upon running the software for the first time, I was greeted by the following error message: File does not exist! C:/:/assembly2/icons/workBenchIcon.svg
Please, see the attached image.

Questions:
1) Did I make a mistake during the installation or is this a bug? I surely hope I missed something.
2) What does that message mean?
3) How do I correct the problem and consequently get rid of the error message?

Thanks in advance for your time and for your answers.

Cheers

Raoul

[chrisb]

You have old stuff lying around. I recommend to remove the complete config directory; see also https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Frequently_ ... rt_anymore

[wisecad]

Thank you chrisb for your super-fast reply.
I will check the new link when you post it.

[wisecad]

Hi crisb,
Your new link took me to a section on the Frequently Asked Questions’ page subtitled: “FreeCAD was running normally, and suddenly it doesn't start anymore”. On the subsection the following instruction was given.
On Windows: Open the file explorer, and write %APPDATA%\FreeCAD as the file path. Once there, delete the files user.cfg and system.cfg
I followed the instruction exactly as provided, then ran FreeCAD again and I am still getting the same error message.

[chrisb]

I am still getting the same error message.

As said above: remove the whole directory or at least all of its contents.

[wisecad]

Remove the whole FreeCAD directory (under %APPDATA%\)???
I went into some of its sub-folders and there is a lot of stuff in there.

[heda]

yes, everything related to freecad in that directory should be wiped out, supposedly there is a directory there which is "assembly2".
this happened the first time you started up after installing v0.19? meaning that you already installed "assembly2" for v0.17.
also "C:/:/assembly2" is not a valid file path on windows (which is the error).

anything in that directory related to base freecad is recreated if missing, and then it holds whatever you install as addons or macros (unless you change default location).

if it was a big problem when installing fresh on windows (including appdir) the forum would be littered with installation issues for v0.19, it is not.

[wisecad]

Thank you so much Heda for clarifying that.
For a newbie, it is scary to delete so much stuff without knowing for sure if it would have consequences later.

[Koemi]

Thank you so much Heda for clarifying that.
For a newbie, it is scary to delete so much stuff without knowing for sure if it would have consequences later.

Got the same, very annoying, error message. It shows at FC V0.19 startup and with every file which is loaded.

Tried a workaround (because I want te keep macro's / settings / etc): everything called something like *assembly2* removed. After restarting FreeCAD (V0.16 and V0.19), I kept all functions which I normally had. Assembly2 WB and error message gone up in smoke.

But I have produced quite a lot of stuff using FC0.16 and assembly2, so I want it back and installed it again. Fired up FreeCAD V0.19, kept fingers crossed and.... Error message back again

Disabling the Assembly2 WB using Tools>> Customize... >> Workbenches also does not work; the error stays.

Unfortunately I cannot find where the error "C:/:/assembly2/icons/workBenchIcon.svg" is coming from... (I have no Python knowledge unfortunately)